She rarely took any drug, including aspirin. Nytol if she absolutely could not sleep, but never the prescription drugs Bolton was so dependent on. Painkillers for his migraines, Celebrex for his arthritis, Valium for his nerves.
Strange that this pill was called Halcion, for that was a word she knew very well, with a different spelling. That was a word which Bolton had used some six years into their marriage, announcing that he’d bought a bed for his study, and there he would sleep henceforth.
“Our halcyon days are over!” said he.
She had gone to the dictionary to learn that their supposed time of “happiness and prosperity” was at an end, puzzling at the idea of prosperity on a professor’s salary, but not surprised that he was unhappy sharing a bed with her.
Relieved that Bolton didn’t want a divorce, and that she no longer bore the burden of the bimonthly, obligatory jackrabbit attacks on her person under the sheets, she acquiesced. Along with other faculty wives, she looked the other way while he suffered through crushes on various graduate students and young, untenured teachers. There was possibly one realized affair with a pint-sized instructor who taught a course called Melville and Whitman, wore peasant skirts and huaraches year-round, and played the harp at college concerts with her wild, wheat-colored hair flowing to her waist.
Myrna House had heard Bolton singing, “How are things in Glacamorra?” in the shower, and remembered Miss Buder’s fingers miraculously coaxing the same tune from the string of the huge instrument she hugged between her stubby legs.
Scott was beginning his teens then, effeminate (she realized in retrospect) and bossy. Remember Bolton House’s harangues about his wife’s shortcomings? Apples don’t fall far from trees. Scott was always making suggestions: not to do with social graces as Bolton did, but more to do with Myrna House’s hair, her clothes, her shoes . . . and yes, one year Scott actually made an Easter hat for her.
Scotti was easier than Scott, Mrs. House mused as she heard the front door slam and knew Baba had won out. Guilty people were always easy. Scotti probably believed that her mother missed Scott, but she didn’t. Aside from the embarrassment his sex change had caused (and now thanks to Opmh and other daytime talk shows it was not all that rare), life was more pleasant with Scotti.
Fat Jessica was out of the picture at last. Little Emma was available for outings witii Grandma and holiday visits. And praise the Lord, or the hormones, or the scare the police had put into Scotti last night, this morning Scotti was actually headed for the cemetery—a place she had always avoided like the plague. Baba would not do his duty anywhere else. Scotti knew that. She would just have to ignore the fact that there was a headstone there with her father’s name on it.
When the telephone rang, Myrna House answered with a peppy “Good morning!” and was rewarded with the one voice she wanted to hear: Dehoy’s.
“I’ve been so worried about you, dear, and I almost lit a ciggie poo.”
The Halcion had left her in this peculiar state where she noted all that was going on without reacting to it, as though she was floating on some puffy cloud above it all.
Delroy brought her back to earth.
What he had to say not only shocked her, but also sent a delicious shiver down her spine. The Lasher child had been kidnapped!
Of course she wouldn’t tell. Cross her heart and hope to die.
She wouldn’t even tell Scotti!
Incredulous, elated to think she was privy to such momentous news, Myrna House could hardly contain herself.
But she remembered to counsel Delroy, “Be careful. Be very careful! Don’t let those people use you! You know how people use you, dear.”
Baba did his second BM in front of Stefan Wolpe’s grave.
Scotti remembered the exotic inscription about birds flying out of a dead mouth from die horribly hot afternoon of her father’s funeral. She had stood by herself, away from the other mourners, as her mother had suggested.
No need to call attention to herself at such a time. It was hard enough on her mother to have to fend off the question “Where’s Scott?” from those who didn’t know Scott was right there, in high heels and pearls.
Beside Scotti that day, the dwarflike Dr. Betti B. Butler suddenly leaned against Scotti sobbing as Scotti would have liked to be able to do. There w'ere no tears from the eyes of Bolton House’s widow, either. Besides Betti B., there were no tears at all.
As Baba finished his business, Scotti pulled him along, ignoring her father’s grave. What point was there in moving down to stand and look at the slab of black stone?
“No point?” her mother would cry out times she’d tried to persuade Scotti to walk there with her. (On his birthday, at Christmas.) “There’s something very wrong with you if you can’t face your own father’s tombstone. Look at what you put him through!”
Baba loved the snow and zigzagged past the graves gaily, after Scotti let him off the leash.
Then, a few inches before Jackson Pollock’s enormous stone, Baba stopped by the oblong piece of marble jutting up toward the gray sky. He looked back at Scotti as though to ask, “Didn’t you forget something?” Obviously he visited there often.
Scotti knew the Swinburne quote by heart.
Sleep, shall we sleep after all? For the world is not sweet in the end.
Scotti remembered hearing wee Dr. Butler recite a fuller version, perspiration mingling with tears on her face, her strange, high voice choking on the words:
Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet for a day;
But love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May.
Sleep, shall we sleep after all? for the world is not sweet in the end;
For the old faiths loosen and fall, the new years ruin and rend.
Dr. Butler did not recognize Scotti at the funeral, though Scotti remembered meeting her after harp concerts that Myrna House would not suffer. Scott went with his father in her place.
“Did you know him well?” Butler had asked Scotti.
“I think not well,” Scotti had answered.
“He was really not a cynical man despite that inscription. He had such elan!”
Scotti had been thankful someone there had respect for him, though she imagined this diminutive colleague of her father’s probably always cried at faculty funerals and spoke in hyperbole. All Scott had known about her was that she lived alone and dressed like an ersatz hippie.
Bolton House had never been well liked. He was always at the thick of faculty infighting, insisting on the traditional over the innovative, balking at change of any kind. It should not have come as a surprise to her that her own dramatic change would do him in.
Scotti was right. There was no point in visiting a grave. Perhaps Myrna House had been right, too: what you could not face you lent significance.
Baba was barking somew'here beyond Pollock’s grave. Trudging in that direction, Scotti saw Baba jumping up on a woman wearing dark glasses, down in a clearing where a lone grave was dug and covered with a tarpaulin.
Len Lasher’s graver She bet it was.
But who was the woman standing there alone?
“Baba! Baba!” She called the bulldog and walked dow'n to the half acre she had heard described by her mother. There were the elaborate plantings, too.
As she approached the woman, she saw only a wisp of white hair falling across her forehead; a scarf covered the rest.
Scotti bent down to reattach Baba’s leash.
She straightened up again and said to the woman, “I’m sorry he jumped on you.”
The woman shrugged and pulled the scarf around her face.
Scotti saw only the large sunglasses as she walked away without uttering a word.
But there was something else Scotti saw: the horse’s head on the scarf, and the single word: “Pisheresse.”
Some random piece of information tried to make its way into Scotti’s consciousness . . . something about that scarf and that name.
The woman kept
going.
So did Scotti’s mind, gnawing away at whatever it was she’d heard someone say: beginning to get it, slowly, starting with Charlotte Mew, then Edward Candle . . . wait a minute, wait a minute, it was coming.
In the front seat of Liam’s sister’s Pinto there were two grocery bags: one with eggs and a cash receipt from the Springs General Store, the other with bacon and a cash receipt from the One Stop market on Springs Fireplace Road.
Nell had called Liam from One Stop, lied about the Springs store being out of bacon, informed him in a deliberately cool tone that there was a line of tradesmen paying for their breakfasts, so she would be just a little late.
His voice sounded calm, almost back to normal.
“Don’t worry about it. Sorry I blew up.”
“See you soon,” she told him with the same crisp delivery.
After that she had gone directly to the Green River Cemetery.
Now Nell Slack hurried down the path from the unfilled grave and got into the Pinto she had parked in the circular drive.
Deanie Lasher had told her the truth, but that fact was overshadowed by the sudden appearance of Scotti House.
Nell was sure there was no way Scotti would have recognized her. How could she? Nell checked her reflection in the mirror as she started the car. The wig was in place. The eyeglasses were huge. Around her neck was the child’s scarf, which Liam had flung at her angrily an hour ago.
This House woman bothered Nell. She had a habit of turning up places she was least likely to be: Hydra on Christmas Eve, the bar in Hampton Bays on New Year’s Day. Now, the Green River Cemetery.
Coincidence perhaps. Yet Nell remembered the first time she’d encountered Ms. House, at the bowling alley. After Scotti had gone into the ladies’ room there, Mario had said something about her working as an investigator.
Nell had laughed and answered, “What does she investigate at the library?”
“No,” Mario had said, “She’s part-time at the library. She works for her ex, too. He’s an insurance investigator. And she’s also in my writing workshop.”
“Multitalented,” Nell had sniffed, and Mario had rushed to add, “We’re just writing buddies, that’s all.”
Nell hadn’t quite believed that then. The way Scotti took off for the bathroom after Nell arrived, a distraught expression on her face, made Nell believe she was just plain pissed because Nell had shown up.
And what about the way she’d sashayed out of the bar with that little he/she and the other woman on New Year’s Day, not a glance in Nell’s direction when Nell knew damn well she’d seen her? Nell had thought she was just a jealous bitch. But now she wondered if something far more lethal and intricate was going on.
Common sense told her Scotti House could not have followed Liam and her New Year’s Day. She was in that bar when they got there.
Still, it tied knots inside Nell. It didn’t sit right with her. This freezing, snowy morning and Scotti House just happened to show up at the cemetery with her bulldog! She just happened to find her way down to the newly dug grave of Len Lasher!
Where was her car? And was it the same car Liam said followed him from the Springs General Store last night?
Nell drove slowly up Springs Fireplace Road trying to figure out any connection between an insurance agency and the Lashers. It did not take her long to theorize that somehow word had gotten out that the Lucky We was in jeopardy. Liam had said it was not insured, but how could he be certain of that?
It did not take Nell long, either, to place blame on Fina Merola. No matter how Liam had raved about her, Nell could not forget what she’d been like back in their days at Haven. “Two-time” was her middle name. She’d plea-bargained herself out of so many jams, every lawyer in New York City knew how she took her coffee.
Nell told herself to just jump ship. Get out while the getting was good. Go direcdy across Old Stone Highway to Route 27, keep driving past all the goddamn Hamptons, then a left onto 495 and into New York City.
Instead, when she reached Old Stone Highway she turned onto Deep Six Drive and drove down to Maritime Way.
Since the grave was dug, chances were all the rest that Deanie had told her was true. Len Lasher was dying. Len Lasher could not talk. A policeman must have posed as Lasher, imitated his way of talking: wansom for ransom, just make the r’s into w’s. If the police and FBI were alerted this early in the game (thanks to Fina?) there was little likelihood the project would work as planned.
Nell had already thought of letting Deanie go. She could do it when Liam went to claim the Lucky We. She did not think she could depend on Liam anymore. If anything needed to be canceled, it was him.
Now, after the encounter with Scotti House, it was not Deanie Lasher’s safety alone that made Nell determined to quit. It was also the hunch that the only way she could save herself was to free the child.
A sudden ball of yellow, foggy sun broke through the clouds as she arrived on Maritime Way.
She wondered if Liam’s unfathomable mood swing the night before was due to his own suspicion that the police were involved. He could no longer promise the child would not be harmed.
Ready for whatever it was waiting for her inside the house, she drove up the driveway with the sun aimed at her determined eyes and set mouth.
It took her a moment to see clearly, to realize that the rental Ford was missing . . . and only a few moments more to discover no one was waiting for her inside.
Liam and Deanie were gone.
While she stripped Len’s bed of Porthault sheets that cost $2,000 each and put them inside a $600 pillowcase, she argued with Burlingame over his idea to give Delroy another $1,000 besides what Len had left him.
“He’s complaining about how little he got before we’ve even had the will read?” she asked. “How does he know what Len left him?”
“Len probably told him. Delroy is very, very disappointed. He thought at least he’d get the little house he lives in.”
“The so-called little house is worth about $700,000. Has he gone crazy?”
“It could easily be passed to him to live in, rent free, for four or five years.”
“For what reason, Jack? Because he does this errand?”
“Delivering the Lucky We to those kidnappers is hardly an errand. He could be in jeopardy.”
She muttered, “After all we’ve done for Delroy, I can’t believe he’d hold us up at a time like this.”
“It’s not his idea. It’s my idea, Lara. Give the guy a break.”
“An extra $1,000 and the little house rent free for several years? That’s some break.”
“It’s not much considering all he did for Len.”
“He was paid to do it.”
“I’d feel better, Lara, if we could guarantee that he could live there rent free for a few years. Skip the extra thousand if it’s breaking your heart.”
“Is he to live there rent free while he works here?”
“Why not?” Jack Burlingame shrugged.
“For one thing, I won’t need him to work here, because I won’t be here. Do you think I’d stay here, with all these memories of Len?”
“I did think you would, because of the memories of Len.”
She gave him a look. “Are you living in the house you lived in with Delia? Have you even gone to Delia’s grave?”
“I don’t think Delroy should have anything troubling his mind while he follows the kidnappers’ instructions. Let’s not have any unconscious feelings on his part that he’s being used. That’s how he says he feels. Let’s have him calm, at peace, satisfied.”
“We’re not reading the will right away, Jack.”
“He knows about it, Lara!”
“I wonder if he knows how much I could get for that little house in the summer?”
She took the pillowcase filled with the dirty laundry across the hall to the chute and dropped it down. She was saying, “If Delroy’s already said he feels he’s being used, he won’t have any uncon
scious feelings that way.” “Don’t get psychosemantic, Lara. Ask your Dr. Mannerheim if I’m not right about putting Delroy’s mind to rest. . . . And for God’s sake, sit down! Take it easy! Why are you doing things you hire people to do?” “Because the alternative is sitting downstairs with the police we have here, thanks to Delroy and his stupid ‘secret’! Only Delroy would get his underwear in a twist over the idea a woman was skunk-drunk.”
She got a fresh sheet out of the bureau. “I have to keep busy. I can’t think about Deanie. I can’t stop thinking about Deanie. I’ve never felt so threatened or so helpless. I’ve never fully realized before this how protected I was by my husband.”
“I can understand that,” said Burlingame. “But I feel Len would approve of the police presence.”
“I don’t trust the funeral home to keep Len’s death quiet, either. People walk in and out of there. It’s a public place.”
“Not where Len is.”
“Don’t! You make it sound like Len is hanging from some meat hook in the funeral parlor basement!”
At that, Jack gave up. His shoulders caved in, his patience gave out, he drew a deep breath and said, “Would you like a Bloody Mary?”
“It’s nine in the morning.”
“I need something.”
“How do you know Delroy hasn’t told everybody?”
“Who would he tell?”
“Everybody. That old lady. Her daughter. Random people around East Hampton.”
“Lara, he promised he wouldn’t.”
“Oh, he promised,” Lara said sarcastically. “A man of his word. Dependable, honorable, and into me for more money and a house and God knows what else he’ll come up with! I thought he really cared about Deanie, too.”
“He does. But there is such a thing as fair play. You could be a little fairer with him.”
“Maybe if we can hang on to it, I should give him the Lucky We.” “You’re not going to make the bed?”
She was. Jack grabbed an end of the bottom sheet and helped her.
He said, “Porthault. Delia used to love these sheets.”
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